


He longs for something unutterable

by PaganWriterAllThaWay01



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Cute, F/M, Fluff, Zutara, Zutara Month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 03:10:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16823941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaganWriterAllThaWay01/pseuds/PaganWriterAllThaWay01
Summary: Zuko hates carnivals. He hates the noise, the crowd, the food. Everything. Then he sees the waterbender. He is a refugee, he cannot capture the Avatar. Still, he feels the urge to follow her, even if he cannot gain anything from it.





	He longs for something unutterable

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! This is my first submission to Zutsra Month 2018! I know I'm late but in my defense it was still the 2th of December in Argentina when I published it on Tumblr, that said, enjoy!

A thousand colourful fireworks fill the skies with with loud booms. Music drops in his ears with the same infectious rhythm it always has during carnivals. The aroma of various fried foods pushes through his nose. It’s overwhelming, in a bad sense. Zuko despises carnivals.

Carnivals not only are full of people, but they are full of unknown loud and happy people. Zuko is not loud nor happy and has therefore no desire whatsoever of being reminded of his lack of joy and loudness. 

It is tiring just to be standing there, under the dim lights of the less crowded part he could find. Uncle Iroh is somewhere in the most crowded part he could find. Uncle Iroh enjoys carnivals, and that is the reason ex-Crown Prince Zuko can be found in a carnival, in an Earth Kingdom Colony.

The air is slightly chilly. Zuko finds it very ironic to be in a Fire carnival where the air is less than warm. It feels somehow wrong and contributes to the ill feeling twisting his gut into knots. Zuko warms himself with his inner fire, but it's somehow not enough. Something's just wrong and the skin in his arms and legs keeps prickling. 

He is eating fireflakes, but they don't taste like fireflakes. They taste dull, fireflakes should not taste dull, they should taste spicy and like crunchy fire. It's a vague, insufficient imitation. If asked Zuko would say he didn't care about it, but he does. It feels like such a spoiled-fire-princely thing to say, and even though he was a Fire Prince Agni knows how long ago, he had never been pampered nor spoiled, –he was too much of a failure to deserve pampering and/or spoiling– he feels stupid. But there he is, judging and complaining to himself about bland inauthentic fireflakes. 

Zuko wishes his hair was longer, so that he could hide his scar. He hates being looked at, he hates the pity in the eyes of strangers, he hates the ugly, blatant red that covers half his faces. 

He is staring off at the crowd when he sees her. He doesn't know why he recognises her. It is really of no use anymore. He's got not crew, no way of taking the Avatar she accompanies to the Fire Nation so that he can have his honour and his place in the line of succession restored. He is a refugee now, just traveling until his uncle decides where to settle. He knows why he won't tell any authorities about who she is and who is somewhere near her. If he can't bring the Avatar to his father, he sure won't let any other stupid general take credit for it. He doesn't know why instantly upon recognising her, he feels the need to follow her even if it serves no purpose at all.

He drops the fireflakes and his legs are moving before he knows it, pushing one step over the other as his eyes follow her green clad form. It's odd to see her in anything but blue, but she will get in trouble wearing blue in a Fire Carnival, green is allowed, if barely. Zuko picks up a blue and white mask from the floor and puts it on, she could recognise him, and that would mean trouble for him.

She's looking at the Fire acrobats. Her eyes are lit up and glowy. Zuko doesn't know if she is about to cry or if the spectacle is really that moving. In order to see for himself, he concentrates on blocking the background noise and directs his gaze to where hers lays. Now that he notices it, drums are being played, it's sort of a mix between acrobacy and dancing. There are two dancers, playing the part of lovers and who are being torn by the acrobats and trying very hard to meet again in any possible way. The dancers don't bend but the acrobats do. The fire on one side and the lack of it on the other create a sort of paranoid but truly incandescent atmosphere. It does look beautiful.

Zuko turns to see her, her eyes are still fixed on the acrobats and the dancers. Her brown hair is arranged in the same fashion it always is. Her eyes are blue. It's not the first time he has noticed it, but it is as if he had never known it before. He had looked at her eyes quite close while fighting her, but they were just eyes back then, now they are blue, bright and– there's another word, pulling at the back of his head, but he cannot bring himself to form it. She's smiling. Her lips barely curved upwards, serene but joyful.

How long has he stared at her? Zuko doesn't know, he feels like an intruder in a very intimate moment. It's ridiculous, there is no intimacy to be found in a carnival. There's, nevertheless, something about watching her unguardedness that feels intimate. But when the spectacle has ended and the waterbender moves to another attraction Zuko follows her, longing for something he cannot name but that he knows, it's related to her.

To Zuko, life can be comprehended through facts.

Fact: Zuko is a fool and anyone who disagrees has not met him.

Fact: he just stumbled upon a rock and fell directly at the waterbender's feet.

Fact: she is giggling because obviously she thinks he is a dumb idiot.

“Are you okay?” Zuko looks at her, her face has nothing but kindness painted in it (it also has a pointy nose he finds terribly cute). She doesn't know who he is. And she is being kind and offering him her hand to help him stand up. He takes it wordlessly and bows his head to her. He doesn't want to open his mouth, if he does, he is sure he will mess up, she'll recognise his voice or he will make up one and then get confused and talk with another, or forget he is faking his voice and speak with his normal voice after a while.

“You don't speak much, do you?” Zuko shooks his head. “Well, don't worry, I don't mind a little bit of silence.” She continues walking and he assumes she expects him to walk with her, so he does. She starts telling him about his brother and their traveling companion, how she has to mother them, how her brother (Sokka, oh and my name's Katara, by the way) is a chauvinistic idiot who cannot mend his owns socks but expects her to be able to mend his, Aang's (our travelling companion), keep everyone fed and provide them with clean water at the same time as if she was born with a needle on one hand and cooking utensils on the other. 

She is funny. Zuko feels something warm curl in his stomach and he is not sure when he stopped feeling chilled and uneasy.

“So, what's your name Mr. Silent?” Zuko coughs. A name! What's his name?? Agni. His name is Zuko, Zuko, he is Zuko. Prince Zuko. Agni, what can he tell her? He can’t tell her his real name. He has a refugee name, he remembers. What was it? Agni he needs to remember it now, if more seconds pass this is going to be too awkward and she will leave and Zuko doesn't want her to leave. Leave. Lea- Li! His refugee name is Li.

“Li.” He forces his voice to lower an octave, he hopes she doesn't recognize it. She doesn't.

“You really don't like talking, do you?” Zuko shakes his head. “I must be driving you nuts then,” she laughs a little to herself but Zuko thinks she really is considering her chatter to be bothering him so he tells her that no, she does not bother him, he just prefers to be quiet, and Agni is it difficult to pitch his voice to such a lower tone.

Zuko feels very warm, relaxed, he feels like floating. Walking with her and listening to her and being able to appreciate the wonder that fills her eyes as they roam the carnival shouldn't mean much. It really shouldn't make him feel warm and like floating on a cloud. It does, and it troubles him, so he does what he does best: he ignores his feelings. Right now he feels too good to be invaded with unease again. Unease can wait to wash over him like waves of drowning, damning reality.

She doesn't know, she doesn't know! She doesn't have to know. 

He grabs her hand and drags her to the games. He finds the throw that- (object Zuko doesn't remember how it's named but it's wooden and cylindrical and… it's a)- glass(!)-with-your-fire game and puts them in line to play.

“One, please.” He says, surprised he remembered to pitch his voice as low as he had to.

“So, you're a firebender?” Zuko nods. She suddenly appears to be nauseated and Zuko feels stupid. How did he not see that coming? Of course she wouldn't want to spend time with a firebender. Agni, why was he such a fool? Zuko forced the anxious ball of self-hatred down his throat and started shooting fire at every glass in the display until they all fell. He has won her a very delicate looking wooden turtleduck. When her face lits up and she stops looking as if him being a firebender was a punch in the gut, Zuko feels a mix of relief and utter happiness. She hugs him tightly to her and he can feel her front and the blush that creeps over his cheeks.

  
  


“So, you like it then?” 

“I do, it was very nice of you.” 

They walk hand in hand while he listens to her chat, and wishes he could take off the mask and talk back to her, give opinions on what she is talking, make suggestions, agree with her (yes! Finally someone who also views tea as the hot leaf juice it is!) But he cannot. She will see his face and she will tell the first guard she can find that Prince Zuko is on Fire Nation territory or worse, she will run away from him.

After a while, she starts preoccupying on where her brother and Aang are. Maybe they are hungry, maybe they are lost, maybe they spent all their money on a rabbit-monkey, maybe they got lost and hungry and Sokka decided to buy a

rabbit-monkey –thus wasting all their money– to eat it while Aang was trying to convince him that the rabbit monkey could be their friend but not their dinner. 

Zuko chuckles. She really is funny. He absentmindedly accompanies her to find her them. He thinks she found them too quickly, because once she has found them she starts walking towards them, and Zuko does not feel comfortable approaching them. More than one person at the same time has become overwhelming to him so before she can drag him with her he drops her hand and says a rushed goodbye to her.

Only when he has walked a safe distance from her, does he take off the mask and notices that he had been holding hands with her half the time they walked together and that he still feels the warmth of her. He wishes he hadn't let go of her hand, he could have bore being in the presence of three people at the same time, he had done so before, a lifetime ago. But he didn't, and now he doesn't know where she is or when will he see her next, if ever.

He feels that unutterable something shake just behind his conscience. He longs for something he cannot name, a closeness, a contact, her warm unguarded hand.


End file.
